The trip was booked through a specialist birding company (Birding)
and was lead by Gerard Gorman. Gerard has lived in Hungary for many
years and is arguably the foremost authority on birds of Eastern Europe.
Unless you are a well-seasoned traveller I wouldn’t recommend
doing Hungry by yourself. Many of the rural road signs are in Russian-type hieroglyphics and bear no resemblance to what is written on the
map. Secondly, many of the locations we visited can only be accessed
by permit. Obtaining such permits can be a bureaucratic nightmare. Third,
but by no means least, it’s easy to stray across the Slovak border
and be confronted by border guards as we did. With Gerard’s assistance
we were able to placate the guards who escorted us to an area where
we could be observed from their watch tower.

Our trip was a two-centre job with the first part spent in the Aggtelek
National Park; this was approximately a three hour drive from our point
of debarkation (Budapest airport). The Aggtelek area is a mix of large
tracts of pine forest interspersed with rolling hills and small villages
with communal fields, where low intensity farming takes place.

Our accommodation was a Swiss-style chalet set deep in a forested ravine.
The accommodation was comfortable with such luxuries as a mini bar and
TV (Hungarian channels); the food was acceptable and the service prompt
and polite.

The Hortobagy is situated in central Hungary
and consists of extensive rolling plains dotted with many shallow lakes
and fish farms. This area is a haven for birds and one of the finest
bird habitats I have visited in Europe.

Our accommodation here was a shock to the
system to say the least. It comprised of several large thatched buildings,
of which our party was assigned one; each building was subdivided into
en-suite rooms with ill-fitting curtains, bed clothes that looked like
hessian sacking and see-through towels. Our bed resembled an old fashioned bed-settee covered in knobbly moquette fabric.
Meals were taken in the main building which was, to all intents and purposes,
a truck stop for the heavy goods vehicles that plied between Moscow
and Budapest. The food was basic and consisted of such delights as Borsht.
Of such things are holiday memories made.